Congratulations Rachel!!!

Our very own Rachel Erin (aka Rachel Horsting) has had one of her original designs published in the new Fall issue of Interweave Knits!  The design is for a beautiful wrap called "Slanting Plaid Stole".  It can be found on page 81 of the Interweave Knits issue.

Many of you may not know Rachel - yet.  She is a knitwear designer who will be teaching the Basic Cables and Intarsia classes this fall at the shop.  She has adorable kids (I do NOT use that term lightly), and is a most excellent asset on my teaching staff.  Way to go, Rachel!

By popular demand, the yarn tapas are in the works!  So far I have planned seven different tapas: Silk & Bamboo, Cotton, Aran Afghan, Worsted, Alpaca, and Sock.  Each tapas will contain 3 to 5 mini-balls of yarns, roughly 20 to 30 yards each, allowing you to try several different yarns without having to buy whole skeins of each.  Most yarn tapas will be about $7.50; some of the ones with more expensive yarns will be a little more.

For those of you unfamiliar with tapas, they are one of the best inventions of the human race.  They are small dishes - always served in a tapas bar - that can be hot or cold, eaten with the fingers or a fork or spoon, and may be composed of virtually any food.  The principle of tapas is that they are small , allowing one to eat several different tapas for a broader food experience.  When tapas are prepared in the traditional size, it is quite possible to eat 5 or 6 different tapas without spoiling your dinner.  Or you could just have several more tapas for dinner and call it wonderful.

Once while in London a friend and I went to a tapas place and one of the dishes I had was of baby eels - looked kind of like short spaghetti with little tiny eyes on one end.  I have had a tapas dish of potatoes cooked in tomatoes, onions and spices that was heavenly, one of shrimp and eggs on buttery toast, tapas of sausage, cheese, clams, oysters, ham, vegetables....there is no end to the possibilities of tapas.  I would be positively ecstatic if a real tapas bar opened in South Bend.  For the record, that is "tapas" bar, not "topless", gentlemen.

Of course, being the penultimate omnivore, I will eat almost anything.  I spent 9 days working in China in 2007, and I ate things there that I could in no way positively identify, despite having done many a dissection in college.  One time at a Sezchuan place I had a duck dish that was made of the duck, the whole duck, and almost nothing else but the duck - some oil and hot peppers.   I swear on my cat's tail, everything but the feathers was in that pot - the bill, feet, blood, innards...the Chinese are not in the habit of wasting much.  

I did not actually order that dish (not that I wouldn't have).  While we were there (I was traveling with four colleagues) we were considered guests of the company we were there to audit, so every meal was a banquet, with much formality.  At all meals except breakfast we sat at huge round tables with huge Lazy Susans in the middle.  Several different dishes would be placed on the Lazy Susan for us to share, family-style.  If one did not at least try each dish, our hosts would be offended.  Soooooooo...........actually, the duck dish was quite bland.  It really needed salt.

However, I digress - the yarn tapas will be available next week.  Today is supposed to be indescribably hot, so stay cool, drink lots of fluids (remember beer is a fluid), and knit happy!